Daral Boles
PORTFOLIO: AFTER
After the fire, we had to relearn the landscape. What looked at first glance like snow on winter ground was ash, in August.
After the fire, the remains of Regadas were cruelly laid bare again while the new house, a fortress of stone walls, metal shutters and metal roof, was built post-2017 to survive a fast-moving brush fire.
After the fire, our ‘green,’ if drought-afflicted campus floated like an oasis in the burn zone. In protecting the center, firefighters also managed to save one of the last remaining stands of mature chestnut trees.
This picture, taken by a guest shortly after our return to campus, captures the shock and exhaustion of the moment for me. The pool was almost instantly closed again when debris from the fire clogged the filter.
Firefighters drew a sharp line around the campus, soaking the perimeter again and again. The strategy worked; chestnut trees were protected while everything outside the boundary burned.
This leaf was my memento mori: heartbreakingly fragile, evocative, and somehow beautiful.
Post-fire, the landscape around campus had changed completely to a dystopian composition of melted soil, stone ruins, and the vestiges of Scotch broom.
Weakened by fire though still standing, this forest outside the town of Manteigas now faces new threats of illness and infestation. Its survival is an open question.
In places, the earth itself seemed to have burned and boiled, spilling like lava down the slope.
On the last day of her stay, one of the Seminarians gave me this drawing, sketched with charcoal she harvested from the burn zone. She writes of the ‘gifts’ of the fire: compassion, connection, acceptance, strength and resilience.
Staff and guests responded to the first sightings of new growth with an almost hysterical euphoria, while the rainbow was taken as a metaphor of resilience. But the new growth is the same as the old growth—invasive, and flammable.
The sight of bright, spring-colored growth seems at first glance a hopeful sign of rejuvenation, but the green in August is out of season and the grass, like Scotch broom, is the fuel of fires to come.
